Environment

9:14 am

Thu January 26, 2012

Groups boycott 'The Grey' with Liam Neeson for portrayal of wolves

A new Liam Neeson action thriller opening Friday is receiving howls of protest from wolf advocates. They say “The Grey” wrongly portrays wolves as massive, bloodthirsty beasts. And some wildlife groups are organizing a boycott.

When a plane crash strands a scruffy bunch of guys in the wilds of Alaska, they find themselves going mano a mano against some very mean looking wolves.

“I sat in a theater and the trailer came on and ... I was just, oh, I just felt sick when I saw it,” says Wendy Keefover of WildEarth Guardians, a group that's trying to get the gray wolf back on the Endangered Species List.

She says for one thing wolves are not the 250-pound hulks shown in the movie.

“You know wolves are expressive, intelligent and emotive beings, and the crisis is not wolves killing people, but literally wolves being wiped out.”

Publicist Liz Biber works for the movie’s distributor, Open Road Films. She says the studio is working with the Sierra Club to distribute information on gray wolves, including a fact sheet on the film's website.

“But just like 'Jaws' and 'Little Red Riding Hood,'" Biber says, "'The Grey' is a work of entertainment.”

Wolf advocates don’t just object to the film itself. The cast of “The Grey” reportedly got into character by dining on a wolf that had been trapped in Canada. Liam Neeson has been quoted as calling the meat “gamey.”